Lex Talionis
by Kuro49
Summary: Neal/Peter. Peter struggles, Neal falls, and it's better on the way up.


I should be rushing essays and studying until five, instead the pressure pushes me for another fic. (At this I wail: why brainnn?!) I don't own, Peter and Neal makes for great inspiration.

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**Lex Talionis**

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It's a push in the right direction, a pull to the wrong method of getting to the same thing just out of reach. It's imbalance, it's want and need and misdirected daddy issues he has no one else to give them to. But oh, there's more.

He has himself convinced that it's true love (it always is, it has to be, there has to be someone out there for him) so when Peter lies, Neal omits the truth in retaliation and no one has the heart to tell him that relationships don't work this way, but what does he know? There has never been a happy ending on his horizon long enough for him and his other half to watch a sunrise together.

But here he is, standing by the balcony with Peter's badge sitting between them as dawn approaches. Neal folds his arms on the cool stone surface and rests his cheek down, face turning to Peter (like the earth to the sun, the tides to the moon but that is both him being wistful and wrongfully poetic on a lack of sleep.)

Neal doesn't flinch at the sudden movement. Rather, he relishes in the way Peter reaches out to brush a hand over Neal's forehead, touch lingering as he pushes back the dark bangs from his eyes.

"You could have asked, Neal."

"And you couldn't have put me out of my misery, Peter? Not everything is ask and take, you taught me that yourself."

Neal fixes him a look with a small tilt of his head, something that reads like bright blue eyes with the way sunlight seeps across the New York sky. Like, though I may be a thief, I know better than to ask for something I will never have. It makes Peter want to soothe away the past, start afresh, knowing full well it won't ever be the same. Not now when he has him pinned by a gaze, not then when he has him chasing and searching.

Still, he doesn't give Neal the satisfaction of looking away and says.

"Maybe this time, you could ask and I could give, Neal."

There is a fraction of a second where he doesn't need an excuse to push forward, pull him close. Except Neal is smiling with a soft shake of his head before pushing Peter's badge over a line drawn in the sand.

A _no, not yet_ he doesn't quite know how to get out as the sun rises.

000

It's an old argument. A fact of life. They neglect to point out that he needs his help just as much as he needs him in general. It's a bit of an over demand for his heart and soul but it's love and he always want some more.

They work and it's a fit he still can't quite wrap his head around.

Except Peter can't help himself, and it has never been like him to quit so completely. Instead he reflects. He gives Neal immunity when he shouldn't, finds his girl when he couldn't, he gives him what he needs and wants to give him more. El sees and doesn't have the heart to tell him the truth. That when he smiles at her like she's the only one for him, she only wants to say that life doesn't work this way, hun.

(The world is not as lonely as you think. There's another one for you, love.)

Neal isn't one for pulling back but Peter fears that once he recoils, he will never come back to himself. And so he works, going slow because Neal has always been one for escape. He wants to be the one to change his mind, the one to make him want to stay.

The second time he lays down his badge for Neal, Peter lets him tell him about Rome.

A three-men con that reminds him of a Neal Caffrey standing at the cusp of his learning curve, where it could have been in Peter's jurisdiction and he still wouldn't find a hair out of place when Neal runs, wind beneath his feet.

"I was the front man," Neal smiles, a little proud as he sits back in his chair, swirling his wine. "I went blonde for the cause."

He lets Neal tell him about Rome and Southern France and how he touched Mona Lisa's smile with astonishment at the tip of his finger. He lets Neal tell him alleged rumours and truths until he can finally find himself again in all that he used to be.

There is another sunrise, something Neal never imagines he can see.

It steals the breath from his lungs when he finally allows himself to admit.

"You've ruined me, you know."

And he isn't the only one to think so, Mozzie tells him enough times that Neal Caffrey is as good as done.

Peter arches an eyebrow when he looks up from stacking the empty bottles of beer on Neal's kitchen counter, "pretty sure that goes both ways, Neal."

And he doesn't turn away when Neal eventually smiles a small unruly thing like he has finally figured things out.

000

It isn't even morbid curiosity, it is suicide, Neal thinks.

Peter often forgets that Neal is as much of a man, in every sense of the word, as he is. So a gasp still escapes when Neal takes his wrists in his hands and pins him to the wall, eyes flashing a dangerous blue.

They are close but not enough to touch aside from the burning brands of Neal's fingerprints over his pulse. And he knows what he wants, what he needs, what he can no longer hide behind his Caffrey grin.

It is the lack of a confidence game that has him running.

Peter waits as Neal's heart beats, something frantic and desperate (like his isn't doing the exact same thing, just by the ten folds.)

"I don't think you understand, Peter."

Neal states, voice low and careful, a silent underlying statement that doesn't escape Peter. I want you to need me, Peter, you have to see. And it isn't a challenge or an invitation when Peter replies, canting his head to catch Neal's eyes. I need you to want me, it's really that simple, Neal. Instead, he says.

"Stop underestimating me, Caffrey."

He meets him halfway where the line is blurred indefinitely and the anklet doesn't feel quite so tight. And much like Neal does everything else, there is no reserve when he pants openly into his mouth, chasing for more with his tongue as his fingers tighten around his wrists. Peter pushes off the wall and matches him one for another.

It isn't soft, it feels like shrapnel and tastes like something sweet. It isn't yielding, it is push for pull, growl deep in their throats as they nip and suck and brand lip shaped bruises over and over again.

He bites at his bottom lip, swallows around his groan and it twists them until they don't quite know which way is up.

(All his life, it has always been about taking.

From rare gems and rough diamonds to one of a kind originals from Southern France. It's about beauty and having what no one else has. It's about art, music, and exquisite taste for the human manifestation of perfection. Neal Caffrey is a thief, fingers itching; he steals for a living and a hobby that is more like a drug addiction. He doesn't think he will ever get used to being handed what he wants.

It feels like cheating otherwise.)

He pulls back slow and untangles his grip from Peter's wrists with a reluctance that is almost odd. Peter wants him to hold on but he knows there's more.

"It won't be now."

Neal says.

Because he is not quite whole shackled to the Bureau even when it means that's Peter at the end of his leash. He needs a certain freedom that isn't a two miles radius, a reassurance that this isn't him succumbing to a bad case of Stockholm that has always teetered at the edge of their mutual chase and confusing it for true love. He needs time to settle and then time and time again to know that he can stay, (he needs to belong to someone who finally wants to keep him for good.)

He wants to believe they can mend burning bridges and not have it end like him and Kate.

"It won't be never either, Neal, I trust you with that."

Peter tells him, and it is more belief than faith when he presses kiss-bruised lips to Neal's forehead. Like the badge he no longer needs to lay down, this is Peter's heart for Neal's. In retaliation, Neal cants his head up, slips his hands back around Peter's wrists, and smiles into another kiss.

XXX Kuro

I _think_ I was going for feel-good and then the fic said fuck you and went its own way.


End file.
